Author's Note: This drabble is much longer than I normally write them, 300 words longer to be exact, but I think it had to be this long in order for it to make sense and not be rushed. I do have a quote in this one, which will be italicized. I got the quote from a website but the link is not going to work here so... Anyways, hope you enjoy:)
Price
"Granger, I'm sick of you moping around this place! Can't you just get over him already?! If he left you that easily, then he obviously wasn't worth your time!" Draco shouted in frustration.
Hermione looked at him with dull eyes. "Don't say that," she said automatically and without true feeling.
"That's exactly what I mean!" He pointed at her, as though she were all the evidence in the world. "You defend him but you don't really mean it. You don't love him, Granger, you never did, really; you only stayed with him out of familiarity and comfort. That's all; no emotional attachment, nothing. Just comforting familiarity."
"That's not true," Hermione mumbled brokenly.
"It is and you know it," said Draco stubbornly. "It's the only reason why you're mooning after him and to tell you the blunt truth, I'm completely sick of it. I don't think I can deal with having to see you like this another day. Can't you find someone, anyone else, other than Ronald Weasley to love? Really Granger, I'm so sick of it that I'd be willing to pay you to find someone else. And that's saying something, considering my policy on money for --mudbloods." Hermione, though she didn't notice his near slip up, did seem to snap out of her stupor at that. At first, Draco thought it was the mudblood comment and started to regret saying such a thing. However, when she spoke, he realized what it really was.
"'You can't buy love… but you can pay heavily for it,'" Hermione murmured with defiance churning contemplatively in her warm brown eyes.
He considered her thoughtfully and even slightly hopefully, his earlier resentment gone. "Yet aren't those payments worth it in the end?"
Her eyes dropped as they glazed over again and silently, he despaired of the returning expression of defeat she bore. "No… The price is too much… the cost too high…. You wouldn't understand."
She pushed past Draco, making her way out the door to leave him, both literally and figuratively. For what Hermione hadn't known was that Draco really did understand. He understood that she was hurting and that she believed love wasn't worth the price. But that didn't mean he agreed.
If anything, he thought the opposite. Because Draco, infamous muggleborn hater and Prince of Slytherin, was willing to pay any price to earn Hermione Granger's love… Any price at all.